Elite Copywriting

Copy that consistently converts — through three sequential decisions, in order: position (what we sell, in whose mind, against what alternative) → audience (who exactly, at what awareness stage, in what market sophistication) → words (the actual copy, in the right framework, the right voice, on the right channel).

Most "bad copy" is bad upstream thinking. The canonical laws of the field all say the same thing in different words:

• Halbert: Market > Message > Media
• Wiebe: Research > Wireframe > Copy
• Dunford: Positioning is the INPUT to messaging, not the output

So this skill is not just about words. It's about everything upstream of words, then words, then everything downstream (testing, iteration, objection pre-emption).

The Three Phase Lens (always start here)

1. Position — Run [positioning.md](references/positioning.md). Dunford 5+1 components. Schwartz awareness and sophistication stages. (Optional B2B) Andy Raskin strategic narrative.
2. Audience — Run [audience-research.md](references/audience-research.md). Mom Test interviews. VoC mining (reviews, transcripts, support, Reddit). Persona × awareness × sophistication matrix. Voice constraint card.
3. Words — Frame the work using [frameworks.md](references/frameworks.md), [channels.md](references/channels.md), and [voice-tone.md](references/voice-tone.md). Draft, edit, audit, test.

The single highest-leverage diagnostic is in [awareness-sophistication.md](references/awareness-sophistication.md) — Schwartz's 5 awareness stages × 5 market-sophistication levels. Always diagnose stage and sophistication before writing. Most underperforming copy targets a Stage-4 audience with Stage-1 copy, or vice versa.

Quick Reference

The Canonical 8-Phase Copy-Development Workflow

Use [workflows.md](references/workflows.md) for full detail. Each phase is a gate — don't proceed until the previous is complete:

Phase 0 — Brief discovery → Phase 1 — Positioning → Phase 2 — Audience synthesis → Phase 3 — Objection prediction → Phase 4 — Big Idea hunt → Phase 5 — Outline + framework selection → Phase 6 — Draft → Phase 7 — Edit pass → Phase 8 — Objection audit + test

For shorter projects (ads, single emails, LinkedIn posts), collapse Phase 1–3 into a single 15-minute diagnosis, but never skip the awareness-stage / sophistication-level check from [awareness-sophistication.md](references/awareness-sophistication.md).

The 80/20 of Becoming Great Fast

1. Master Schwartz's two scales — awareness (1–5) and sophistication (1–5). [awareness-sophistication.md](references/awareness-sophistication.md)
2. Run Wiebe's VoC protocol before writing — review mining, transcripts, support, interviews. [audience-research.md](references/audience-research.md)
3. Internalize Dunford's 5+1 components. Always start here. [positioning.md](references/positioning.md)
4. Build a swipe file from [teardowns.md](references/teardowns.md). Re-read monthly.
5. Write to one person. Read aloud. Cut 30–50% on second pass.

What Elite Copy Always Does (and AI rarely does)

• Specific over generic — replace every adjective with a number, every "many" with the exact count
• Lived detail over generic claim — "6 a.m. to write" beats "productive routines"
• One contrarian point that AI couldn't have written
• Read-aloud rhythm — Provost cadence, varied sentence length
• Active voice, 2nd person, present tense as defaults
• "You" beats "we" 3:1+ in the final count
• Pre-empts the embarrassing objection before it forms (see [objection-prediction.md](references/objection-prediction.md))
• Names the named — when the brief names a recipient or their company, those names appear in the actual copy (not just in metadata, headers, or the doc title). A cold email to Maya Patel at Lambdarail must contain "Maya" and "Lambdarail" inside the email body or subject line.
• Honors the constraint literally — when the brief says "3–5 sentences," count the sentences. When it says "max 22 words," count the words. When it says "under 100 words," count the words. Constraint-violation is a silent failure mode that destroys trust.

Audit & Diagnosis (when reviewing existing copy)

For any project that already has existing copy AND/OR a brand voice doc, audit first and rewrite second: the brand voice doc outranks skill defaults, extract it into a constraint card before touching a line, and verify every rewrite against the card.

Plus run [checklists.md](references/checklists.md):

• Page-audit diagnostic — score the 4 Buyer Concerns 0–10 each (will it work / for me / how fast / how risky); lowest score = fix next.
• AI-slop scan — em-dashes, "delve," "tapestry," "leverage," rule-of-three lists, "It's not X — it's Y" patterns.
• Edit pass — specificity, "you"/"we" count, read-aloud rhythm, anti-slop.

Critical rule when a brand voice doc exists: brand rules override skill defaults. The skill's anti-em-dash rule does not apply if the brand voice doc explicitly uses em-dashes; the skill's "you" 3:1 rule does not apply if the brand voice doc favors "we" on heritage surfaces. Always read the brand voice doc first; extract its hard rules; only then apply skill defaults where the brand doc is silent.

Related Skills

• elite-brand-design — voice + tone (NN/g 4 dimensions) lives in the brand package; voice constraint card is brand-level.
• elite-design-core — design tokens, typography, visual hierarchy affect how copy is consumed and the cadence it reads at.
• elite-ux-strategy — conversion copy works inside conversion UX patterns; CTA, microcopy, error states live at this intersection.
• elite-audit — copy quality audit is a dimension of elite-audit. Common copy failures map to specific remediation skills.

Cross-Skill Loading

When this skill loads, also load elite-design-core (for type/grid impact on copy length and rhythm). For brand-voice work, also load elite-brand-design. For landing pages / conversion work, also load elite-ux-strategy. For QA passes, also load elite-audit.

Triggering Bias

Bias toward triggering this skill. Even when the user just says "what should this email say" or "make my landing page better" — that's a copy task. When in doubt, load this skill, read the relevant reference file, and apply the canonical 8-phase workflow (collapsed where appropriate). Under-triggering is the failure mode; over-triggering costs almost nothing.